Chapter Three: CHILDREN OF VIOLENCE

Violence towards children brings out a passionate reaction in
most adults because few of us get through childhood unhurt, either
emotionally or physically. We can all remember moments of utter
helplessness and impotence at the hands of an enraged adult. For
the lucky ones, the angry parent soon reverts to a normal, loving
self and promises the child that she or he will control their
temper next time. For the others, there is no such hope, and the
child is at the mercy of two entirely unpredictable human beings.

I often feel that some middle-class children have a much harder
time at the hands of their parents than do working-class children,
yet it is a common feeling that violence to children does not
happen in 'nice' families - by which most people mean the white
middle classes. I remember, in the early days of women's aid,
trying to persuade an agency worker that a woman was not only
being very violent to her three children but was also neglecting
them. The agency worker promised to go round to the house, and
I telephoned the next day to see what had happened. She was very
hesitant. 'You didn't tell me her husband was a dentist,' she
said. 'It's very difficult in these cases., I saw her point. II
is very difficult, because middle-class people have professional
resources like lawyers, whom they can use to sue anyone who dares
suggest they are less than perfect.

It seems harder for a middle-class parent to ask for help. I still
painfully recall going to a psychiatrist, when my daughter was
little, and asking him to help me with my violent feelings towards
her. I remember the shock on his face. He considered my successful
husband, a national tele

58

vision reporter. He looked at my two well-fed, well-dressed children,
and then he looked at me. 'Mrs Pizzey,' he said, sitting back
in his chair, 'the problem is that you are a bad mother.' What
he meant was that, firstly, I had everything anyone could want;
secondly, violence, he had been trained to believe, results from
bad social conditions; therefore if you could not lay claim to
social deprivation, then you must be intrinsically evil or bad.

On another occasion I was in a neighbour's house. I had always
suspected that it was a violent family, particularly because of
the elder child's behaviour. I knew this child was being seen
regularly by a child psychiatrist for educational problems. One
morning I was in my bedroom, with the window open, when I heard
terrible screams coming from a house in the square. The cries
of a desperate child. I ran barefoot down the stairs into the
street and down the pavement until I stopped outside the door
of the house from which the cries were still coming. 'No, mummy!
No, mummy! Don't do it . . . Don't . . . ' The screams had such
ringing intensity that they must have been heard by at least a
dozen of the houses round about, yet no one stirred out of a single
door. The people already on the street merely turned their heads
and hurried by. I banged on the front door. No answer. I banged
so hard that the frame shook. The battered child in me was screaming
- it was the battered child in so many people crying out for help.

Sheila finally opened the door. She was panting with rage. She
was speechless. Her eyes were bulging, and her hair was sticking
out in sweaty strands. She stood in silence, shaking. I pushed
past her and ran upstairs. Rodney was standing in the doorway
of his bedroom. He was naked, and there were red finger-marks
across his chest. It was his shocked little white face that broke
my heart - the dreadful acceptance by a child of six that it was
his fault, he'd been naughty, and he deserved what had happened.
He already knew that if you upset your parents, they beat you.
He explained what had happened. His father had gone off yet again
with another woman. Rodney had gone into his mother's room to
phone his father, but mummy had come in and overheard him. She
flew into a blinding rage, tore the telephone off the wall, and

59

then laid into him. I cuddled him gently.

That sort of incident can happen with any parent pushed beyond
endurance, but the difference here was that in Sheila's family
it was a regular occurrence. The children of this family were
often battered, but it was covered up by both parents. Rodney's
abnormally violent and psychopathic behaviour at school was explained
away as his 'giftedness'. The outpatient clinic he attended never
even suspected that he was being battered.

I went downstairs to Sheila, but I felt an enormous rush of sympathy
for her. 'What are you going to do?' she asked. 'Nothing,' I said.
'All you must do is to go to the clinic and see Rodney's psychiatrist
and tell him the truth. I will phone him myself once you've told
him, because I need to be sure you've phoned, for your own protection
and for the children. Now we've been through this together, and
you know I'm nearby. It will be a measure of control for you.'
Poor woman. It must have been hard for her, but at least the clinic,
although they had missed the signs before, had a reputation for
being good and sympathetic.

But it is a mistake to think of violence as a collection of bruises
and broken bones. It is not the physical attacks that do the worst
of the damage; it is the slow destruction of a human soul in the
hands of people already suffering from their own violent natures.
Until it is accepted by everyone that verbal violence can do far
more damage than even the most savage physical onslaught, we will
continue to react only to stories and pictures of visibly battered
children, and comfort ourselves that it only happens among the
poor and the feckless.

In my experience of cases which range from one end of the social
scale to the other, the truth is that the more primitive the personality,
the greater the likelihood that they will lose control of their
rage and batter or even kill. You will find these people in all
walks of life. Among the middle classes, however, with their highly-developed
methods of social control, the violence will, for the most part,
be physically restrained but will acquire a mental sophistication
that is far more dangerous to the survival of the other members
of a family. You can destroy the physical world of other human

60

beings by smashing up the house and beating up the inmates. The
home can be mended and the bruises will fade. But in bringing
up children, although you may never physically attack them, you
may instead slowly decimate any sense of self they have, so that
their inner world is destroyed. And then you commit the equivalent
of soul murder, and the resulting adults will be the walking dead.

Middle-class violence is still a taboo subject. Because it remains
largely untold and is a highly skilled vice, it goes untreated
and unchecked. I see it in the eczema, in the migraines, in the
epileptic fits, in the asthma. I see the violence in all the stress
symptoms of childhood: in the child up the road that constantly
has a red ring round his lips because he nervously sucks at them
all the time; in the child that blinks furiously when you speak
to her; and all the other cases taken to the doctor's surgery
for him to recommend treatment for the symptoms. It would probably
never cross the doctor's mind that Richard's nightmares about
his mother were a result of her incestuous overtures. That Melanie's
migraine was a result of the silent battle of a ten-year-old to
keep her father out of the bathroom because she recognises that
his feelings towards her are more sexual than paternal. Or, in
the case of an eight-year-old boy attending the hospital for ulcers
- his own father a doctor - that his bleeding stomach was a symptom
of the family meal times when everyone round the table sat in
terror of the father's moods and continual acid remarks to his
son reminding him of his failure at school, on the sportsfield,
in life, as a human being.

You have a greater chance of coming to terms with your own violent
childhood, which often includes sexual as well as physical attacks,
if the events are actualised and visible. If you have parents
that act out their damage in front of you, it is all seen, heard
and experienced. The most difficult cases to treat, however, are
where the violence is never all openly said, seen or heard. This
is the case in the majority of middleclass homes. It will continue
to be the case until enough middle-class emotionally-disabled
people have the courage to get together and work to prevent it.

Just recently I became involved with a grandmother who

61

was extremely worried about her grandson. Her daughter, the child's
mother, came to see me as a result of a hideous beating from yet
another violent boyfriend. I have seldom seen a face so badly
smashed up. Her little boy was three years old, but in his life
he had known nothing but drugs and violence. When he was a baby
he had even been taken to India on a heroin smuggling operation
by his mother and a previous boyfriend. This girl had been a deb
of the year, and her godfather was one of the world's richest
men. Her mother was frantic with worry about her little grandson;
she knew her daughter to be an alcoholic and incapable of coping
with a child. She approached her local Social Services for help,
and they promised to go round right away. 'Sophia fooled them,'
she told me later on the phone. 'She completely fooled them.'
Well, Sophia may well have fooled them, but to her own cost. A
few weeks later she was found dead on the floor of her kitchen
with the little boy sitting beside her watching television. The
verdict was death by misadventure, and her death certificate stated
that she had died of a combination of alcohol and drug abuse.

In my work I learned, to my horror, how soon children become physically
and emotionally addicted to pain. I think the youngest example
of this I found in a baby of three to four months old. His mother,
Frieda, was well known to us at the Refuge, and was probably one
of the most violent women I have ever known - at least I thought
so until I met her mother. We despaired of Frieda's behaviour,
but she was such a life-force, and such an intelligent, funny
human being, that we all persevered with her. With the help of
her social worker, Frieda moved out of the Refuge into a New Town.
She was pregnant again at the time, and she visited the Refuge
to reassure me that, in spite of all my gloomy predictions, all
was well. Of course, everything looked wonderful. Frieda was always
a spotlessly clean, wonderful home-maker, and a good cook. Baby
Joss was all dressed in white, and looked just like his father.
He lay on my lap kicking and cooing, and seemed a very contented
baby. There was a sudden moist patch on my knee, where Joss had
wet through his nappy. Frieda took him back and undid his

62

terry-towelling nappy. The baby lay contentedly on her lap, looking
into her face and smiling.

Frieda then began to pinch his fat little cheeks, and he smiled
and gurgled. Then as she pinched she began to twist his flesh.
Any other baby would have been screaming with pain, but this baby
just gurgled happily. I was horrified and glanced round at Anne
Ashby, who was looking aghast. 'Stop it, Frieda,' I said, 'you're
hurting him.' 'I'm not,' she protested. 'See, he's laughing.'
She was right. But realising our disapproval, she turned her attention
to changing his nappy. Within a few minutes she was pricking his
bottom with a pin. Again he laughed and gurgled. 'Stop, Frieda,'
I said again. 'You're being cruel'. Frieda knew that - but mother
and child were sharing a moment which excluded people who used
words like love, tenderness, and affection. They were bonded in
their addiction to giving and receiving pain. We could only tell
her social worker of our anxiety. Several years later I heard
that Joss was up for adoption. I felt sorry for the uncomprehending
family who would take him in and never understand why this beautiful,
healthy baby would probably grow up to be a dangerous violence-prone
man. But I know why: I saw it for myself.

The observer in me often watches such interactions with fascination
even while my human side is outraged and appalled. I clearly remember
sitting with a young couple, both of whom were violent, as we
talked about how he could alter his need to inflict pain on Jenny
and she could perhaps learn to enjoy making love in preference
to having a good fight. Their eighteen-month-old toddler, Anthony,
on seeing that we were absorbed and ignoring him, decided to put
his head on his father's knee. 'See,' said John, pleased with
himself, and looking at me. 'See how much he loves me?' (Actually
the child was not his, which served as another source of conflict
in the family.) Jenny immediately became defensive. 'He loves
me better than you. Come here, Anthony, Come here.' She stretched
out her arms to him.

Anthony, who at eighteen months had already survived a series
of adult fights, and attacks upon himself which would have killed
most babies, looked coolly across at his mother and did not move
his head. Jenny became more agitated. 'Come

63

here, you little cunt,' she insisted. The child, gauging the situation
decided to go over to his mother. When he moved over to her and
sat in her lap, John felt betrayed, and began to swear at Jenny.
She then raised her voice, and the situation escalated. The child
sat watching, his eyes shining. he found the scene exciting. Soon
he would get punched by one or other parent, then he would join
in the drama. Other children watch television for excitement;
but he had live drama all day and all night in his family. I intervened
and put a stop to the quarrel. Yes, they admitted that was sometimes
how the rows developed. Shamefaced, they could see what they were
doing to the child. They acknowledged their own violence and brutal
backgrounds, and they did sincerely wish to change. The last I
heard, Jenny had remarried, but still kept Anthony. I pray she
has changed it can happen.

It was not only my own observations that led me to believe that
pleasure and pain can be crossed in early childhood, but also
observations by the staff. Nicky Hay came to see me one day and
described how a three-year-old girl had come into the Refuge with
a dreadfully burnt hand, encrusted in a filthy bandage. It was
necessary to cut the bandage away from the hand which involved
tearing away pieces of burnt skin. Nicky had expected the child
to scream and struggle. But no, the child sat impassively and
patiently while the doctor cut the bandage off. 'I couldn't believe
it,' said Nicky. But I could. I had watched for years our children
falling off walls, breaking limbs, walking into the Refuge covered
in bruises, with black eyes, split lips. They did not feel pain
like ordinary children.

Tony and Billy came into the Refuge with their mother. Marge lashed
out at anyone and everything, particularly at her two uncontrollable
boys. She had just left an extremely violent man - so extreme
that he had been locked up in a hospital for the criminally insane.
Although recognised as a troublemaker in his youth, he always
got off any charges against him because his adopted mother was
a middle class Justice of the Peace. Nobody noticed how seriously
disturbed he was until it was too late, and then he was sent to
the hospital for the criminally insane.

Tony the elder boy spent his time in the Refuge fighting.

64

He was only really happy and content when he was punching or being
punched, preferably by someone bigger. I was opening my house
in Bristol at that time, and I needed to take five families with
me to begin a new community. I chose Marge because I needed her
administrative abilities, her energy and her humour. She could
drive, and also I suspected she was not physically and emotionally
addicted to violence. I believed that, given a clean break and
an opportunity to achieve something in her own right, she would
not go back to a violent relationship.

Tony, however, was a different matter. At five he was a bully
and a thug. Living with him was a nightmare, since he smashed
everything in sight. Marge, so used to years of dreadful violence
from the father and then from the son, would sit at the kitchen
table and throw her wooden Dr Scholl sandal at him. ~ would crack
him on the head but he wouldn't even notice. Then Marge and I
would fight about it. 'You can't beat children better,' I'd yell.
'How else can I stop him?' she'd yell back. Finally we instituted
a daily pocket-money system. Pocket-money belonged to each child
by right, and could only be removed for violent behaviour. It
worked. We devised a long-term reward system for the children
in the house, and slowly they calmed down.

Then Jimmy came into Marge's life. She could not believe that
such a kind good man would ever want her, after all she had been
through. The boys adored him. One day you would catch Tony leaning
against Jimmy. Then another day he took his hand. They moved out
together and set up home. A baby daughter was born. Marge rang
up and asked if they could come to the Bristol house to see me.
The boys went out into the garden to play. I was delighted as
I sat in our sitting-room admiring the baby, thinking how lucky
she was to be born in peace. There was a loud howl from the garden
and Tony appeared, clutching his knee. It was grazed. 'Come here,
son said Jimmy. Tony flew into his new father's arms, and buried
his head in his chest. Tony was crying. He could now feel pain.
He had grazed his knee and it hurt and he cried I cried, too.
Those are the little miracles, the times when you know it is all
worthwhile. People can change, but the younger you treat violence
the faster you can effect the changing.

65

Amanda was two when her father Francis died. He was knifed by
her mother in a moment of rage that even she could barely understand.
One or other of that couple was bound to end up dead in their
violent relationship, and it turned out to be Francis. Christine,
the mother, was distraught. She sat beside me in the office going
over and over the dreadful moment when the knife slid into his
throat, when he staggered to the bed, and then fell to the floor.
Amanda banged around the office, tore at her mother's skirts,
sang, walked round and round in circles. 'Are you sure she didn't
see what happened?' I asked. 'No. Amanda was asleep next door.'

Two or three days later, I was sitting with Christine when Amanda
came banging into the office. She indicated that she wanted to
draw on my large drawing-pad. I spread out my coloured pens as
I always do, and she chose the red one and handed it to me. 'Draw
Francis,' she said, gazing at me very intensely. I know that when
a child has that sense of urgency with you, they are about to
let go of something which to them is momentous. As soon as I had
drawn a not very good cartoon figure of Francis, she took the
pen from my hand and drew lines all round the figure, and then
began stabbing the paper, over and over again, meanwhile looking
at her mother. As I suspected, having encountered so many, many
children who were witnesses to killings, she had been there and
seen it.

I know Christine did not deliberately lie to me. She would have
had no real memory of actual events in that moment of murder,
because violence fuses realities. She and Francis would have been
in a world of their own. This fusing of realities affected her
recounting of the stabbing to the police. By the time she was
talking to them she was no longer in that heightened shared reality,
but was suddenly in their world. Our police and our courts should
remember that when a person describes a crime he has committed,
he is often not lying, but is simply speaking from a reality that
is totally different from the one he was in when he committed
the crime. Each different reality has its own distinct set of
memories.

Christine would just not have noticed Amanda in the room at the
time. But it was vital for the child to be able to tell

66

someone what had happened, to share what she had seen, and also
to he angry with her mother. When the knife pierced her father's
carotid artery, the blood hit the ceiling and sprayed around the
walls. The last she would have seen of him was lying in a heap
on the floor. It was now important for her to see him at peace.
I explained to her that Daddy was asleep and would be going away.
She listened intently with her head on one side.

Anne Ashby took Christine and Amanda to the funeral parlour where
Francis lay quietly at rest in his coffin. Al-though Christine
was hysterical with grief, Amanda looked at him very quietly.
Anne took Polaroid photos of Francis in his coffin, and I was
waiting for them both when they got back. After comforting Christine,
I looked over at Amanda, who was sitting on the bed in the office.
I took the photograph and sat down beside her. 'Did you see your
Daddy sleeping, your Daddy dead?' I asked her. She slowly nodded
her head. She put two fingers into the comfort of her mouth, and
two huge tears rolled down her cheeks. She knew. She understood.

It took a year for the mother to come to trial. Christine lived
at my Bristol house while she slowly came to terms with the dreadful
reality of what had happened. She stayed with us in London during
the trial. After three days the jury unanimously declared her
not guilty. The relief was enormous, but she will still have to
face the day when the children, having repressed their memories,
will ask how their father died, and they will know that it was
their own mother who killed him. Christine knows that when that
day comes, wherever we are, we will have that knowledge of their
history, and we will help her.

We will always keep in touch with Christine, and hopefully she
will have learned enough about herself to he able to help Amanda
come to terms with her father's killing. As she grows up, Amanda
will need to work through again and again, with us and with child
guidance, her memories of Francis's death. If the memories are
not dealt with, they will sink into her unconscious. In later
life, picking up a knife could then become a reflex action if
she is fighting with a man. We hope that we have caught her young
enough and can work with her thoroughly enough, so that she may
recognise and under

68

stand the murder, and then use that understanding to break the
pattern of violence in her own life.

The Richards family arrived at the Refuge in the middle of the
night. They had travelled overnight from Yorkshire. Jody, their
mother, was distraught. It took some considerable time to sort
out the details of what had happened. Steve and Brian took the
children off to playschool to let them talk out and draw their
grief and confusion. I sat down with Jody. Jody had been living
with the father of her youngest child Michael, who was seven months
old. There were three other children: Julia who was two, Tyrone
who was four, and Peter, aged five.

Jody had adored her own father, who seemed to have been a kind
gentleman, but her mother was a monster. She hated Jody, who had
been a very pretty, lively and intelligent child. Unfortunately,
her father, her only protector, died when she was quite young,
so she was left to the mercy of her violent bully of a mother.
Jody soon decided that she would only survive if she fought back.
Soon she was not only in trouble at home but also at school. The
school showed little under-standing, and continually punished
the already abused little girl. Slowly she was transformed into
a furious, intractable adolescent. Everything she did was in reaction
to her mother. She deliberately dated West Indian boys, knowing
how racially prejudiced her mother was. She took drugs, she drank
herself silly, and soon became pregnant. Her mother fought back.
All her life her mother had devoted herself to fooling the neighbours.
The image of the little God-fearing woman who went out to work
and scrubbed her house clean was a camouflage for an embittered,
violent woman. She was one of the few human beings I found it
difficult to like.

Jody was always with a new man, continually going back to her
mother to scream and yell and demand attention. The first two
children were born and she moved into a council flat supplied
by the borough. But she could not cope with the two small children,
so they were taken into care, and then returned to her, and then
received back into care when she broke down again. Her restlessness
made it impossible for her to stay indoors at night. She needed
to be out and

69

roaming the estate. Sometimes she would come back with men, for
money and for company. Sometimes she would come back with a bottle,
to drink herself into oblivion. The flat was sparse and the children
had very little to wear. It was impossible for her to cope with
all her own chaos.

Peter the eldest boy did his best to look after Tyrone and Julia.
He learned very early to expect nothing from life and he got on
with the business of seeing that they had enough to eat. He would
nag and shout at his mother by the time he was three. He was used
to being hit so he felt no pain.

Then Jody met Ralph. He was a giant of a man and very kind to
Jody and her children. He was already living with another woman
with three children, but he spent more and more time at Jody's
flat. She became pregnant, and Michael arrived, but she could
not bear the nights on her own when Ralph was with the 'other
woman. Soon she became obsessed with the images of Ralph somewhere
else without her. She would beg and plead for him to stay. Ralph
was rarely violent, but if pushed too far, he was known for his
ability to explode into violent rage.

No one will ever know what it was that took him over to the other
woman's house that night, and caused him to mutilate and then
stab the woman to death. According to Jody, he came back to her
flat covered with blood. He complained of dreadful stomach pains
and told the children to wait for dinner, while he had a bath.
He went into the bathroom and locked the door. Jody waited, then,
hearing no sounds from the bathroom, and getting no answer to
her knocks at the door, she broke it open. Ralph was lying dead
in the bath. The children crowded into the room to look at him.
Jody called the police, and Ralph's body was taken away. Jody
was by now in an incredible state of fear. The neighbours, many
of whom were Jamaican, were openly hostile to her. She picked
up her children and ran to us. Now it was up to us to make sense
of what happened both for her sake and for the children's.

This drawing is by Peter; he was explaining to my colleague Steve
the complexity of the family relationships, as it involved four
different fathers. He also showed in his drawings how he saw Ralph
dead in the bathroom. He was also clearly

70

aware of the other woman's death, but he agreed with Tyrone that
they were not there when she died. Peter was a very intense, moody
child given to sudden outbursts of rage. Like most small children
who have been robbed of the innocence of their childhood, Peter
was frighteningly precocious.

Tyrone, however, was a professional charmer. He quietly got what
he wanted from life by a mixture of friendly manipulation and
cunning. He also was able to describe the sight of Ralph's nose
under water, and he remarked on the bottles on the floor. Where
as Peter showed grief and sorrow, Tyrone seemed quite cheerful,
but he was the one who let me know he had a secret.

At playschool Julia spent hours stabbing at the walls and her
drawing paper with a brush dipped in red paint. The play staff
were all fairly new and had not worked before with any children
who had witnessed murders. They were amazed at the ferocity and
intensity of her attacks on the walls. Although Jody insisted
that the children had not seen Ralph stabbing the other woman,
Julia's behaviour was an accurate acting out of a violent event.
When she raised her little hand in a stabbing motion I warned
the staff, if she were left untreated, this event would go deep
into her subconscious, only to reappear in a moment of crisis
when she herself felt attacked. Then there was a very real possibility
that she would stab someone.

It was several years before Tyrone was able to tell me that they
had all watched the stabbing, as I suspected.

My immediate concern, however, was the baby, Michael. He seemed
to be sleeping his little life away. At seven months he had the
typical look of a neglected child. As he was unable to sit up
or turn himself oyer, he constantly moved his head from side to
side, and the friction from the sheets had made him bald. I noticed
that his only form of play was to clutch his bottle with his feet
which he used as hands for lack of ever being taken out of his
cot. If I held him up, his little legs would dangle helplessly.
I thought that if we kept him in the main sitting-room, where
there were plenty of people to pick him up and cuddle him, he
might be stimulated enough to come to life. It was soon apparent,
however, that he did not want to join the human race. Life for
him was all too painful,

72

so he was sleeping his life away.

I talked it all over with my daughter Cleo, who was at home with
a baby of the same age. I then talked to Jody who agreed that
something must be done for Michael. Of course, we were in touch
with the Social Services in her area, but they had nothing to
offer Jody which was realistic in terms of support, so were unable
to suggest any solution except to let us cope the best we could.
In spite of all her problems, Jody was a woman with many excellent
qualities. Because her relation-ship with her mother was so intense,
there was really no room for anyone else. She had never trusted
anyone before. Her life had been a kaleidoscope of agency workers
who, one by one, gave up on her.

Her mother came by at this point, full of Hail Marys and
poison. I listened to a catalogue of Jody's sins, and when the
mother sat back, her eyes sparkling with malevolence, I took the
wind out of her sails by completely agreeing with her. 'But,'
I pointed out, 'here she is much loved. We might not like what
she does, but we love her.' The old lady did not feel much like
conversation after that. Swearing loudly on the heads of her babies
and the graves of various departed relatives, she left the room.
I then asked Jody if I could take Michael home each night and
bring him back to her during the day. Not only would I have concentrated
time to give to him this way, but it would also mean that Jody
could have an uninterrupted night's sleep. She agreed and I took
him home.

Feeding him in the peace of my own house, I noticed how fierce
he was when he was sucking his bottle. I held him close to my
breast with my face close to his so that he could hear me talking
to him. He would suck furiously at the nipple of the bottle, and
stretching out his hands he would pinch and scratch my face. I
had noticed at the Refuge that he had a large area round his navel
that was constantly sore and covered in half-healed scabs. Our
wonderful health visitor Cilia had given us a special cream for
it, but now I saw why it would not heal. As he drank from his
bottle, he would tear at his skin until it bled. His pain and
pleasure were already confused. I took him to the bathroom and
gently lowered him into the bath, as I have with hundreds of babies
before him. It

73

was sad to watch his face completely dissolve into a pained grimace
as the warm water immersed him. It was not fear; he was not afraid.
He could not bear the pleasure - it hurt him. Cleo remembers from
feeding and changing Michael, that he was incapable of holding
food in his system. As soon as food went in one end, it came out
the other. His digestive tract was as immature as a new-born child's.
Michael had given up on life, so his body refused to develop and
take nourishment.

Now the real work began. Cleo and the rest of the community at
my house pitched in. We realised that it would take time, but
in fact I always forget how wonderfully resilient children are.
Given the right climate, like a drooping plant, children revive
at a startling rate. My grandson at seven months was sitting up,
pulling himself to his feet, and shouting garbled commands at
everyone in sight. Every evening Keita and Michael would lie on
the carpet together. Keita was thrilled with him and gave him
all the benefit of his advice. Michael suddenly began to smile
his funny, painful, crooked smile. I still had to let him pinch
and scratch me when he sucked. I did not pull his hands away;
I just rocked him on my rocking chair, and sang to him, and stroked
his rigid little body.

Gradually he began to pinch less and less, and within a few weeks
the change was dramatic. Michael decided that the world was not
too bad a place at all. He became a friendly, outgoing baby. He
put on weight and smiled at everyone. The day of the inquest arrived,
and Anne Ashby took Jody along. It was a long, protracted affair
because no one could make sense of what had happened. The coroner
gave an open verdict, because they could not decide how anyone
with as much alcohol in their system as Ralph could have died
without vomiting.

The next hurdle was the funeral. We were very anxious about the
event because there were many of Ralph's relatives who felt Jody
should not attend. But Jody was determined to go. I felt that
it was vital for the children to see both the coffm and the grave.
I have treated so many cases of adults who were denied access
to their parent's graveside by well-intentioned relatives, and
these people grow up to feel forever that the parent has abandoned
and betrayed them. I always advise

74

excellent and dedicated people working for the mothers and children.
If I asked them to risk themselves, they did. This occasion was
no exception. However, the funeral turned out to be fairly uneventful
in terms of aggression towards Jody, and it gave us a chance to
talk to the children and to explain exactly what was happening
to Ralph. Tyrone, in his in-credibly practical way, was fascinated
by detail. Peter dealt with it all by changing moods, from racketing
around noisily to withdrawing suddenly. Julia was fairly impassive,
but the two moments that united the family were when Ralph's coffin
was brought in and they all knew that he was in that box; and
when the coffin went down out of sight into the grave, and they
realised Ralph was truly gone. He had not 'gone shopping,' or
run away from the children. He was dead.

Unfortunately, now that the drama was over, the Housing Department
began to harass Jody about returning to her flat. Some of her
social workers insisted she should return to 'normal' life, but
if you are emotionally disabled, you are far too insecure to face
such people who argue that you must return to what they regard
as real life, and say 'No. I need support. I need a community,'
because saying this would be tantamount to recognising and admitting
that you are disabled. We had not yet got that far with Jody,
to a point where she could feel comfortable and accept herself
as a good, warm, loving woman. She still slipped back into her
lifetime pattern of feeling bad about herself. So it was in one
of those dark moods that she returned to her flat. We heard from
her from time to time, and then we learned that all the children
had been taken into care.

Jody came in to see me, and explained that she had not been able
to cope on her own. I pointed out that very few women could cope
on welfare with four children under six. I said that I, for one,
would take to the bottle immediately. That made her laugh. I was
glad that the children were at least safe for a while, because
she needed time and space to herself. It was sad that her borough
saw the care that we

75

offered as such a threat to themselves that they preferred to
put Jody in a position where she was forced to fail. Their solution
was to put her very small children into care in Yorkshire. It
must have cost the tax-payers at least four hundred pounds a week
to maintain her kids in care. It would have cost only Jody's social
security contribution for the whole family to stay with us.

When I went over with Jody, to see the children, it was the usual
bleak children's home. The children, mostly black or half-caste,
were looked after by sympathetic young girls, but the mountains
of rules and standards of hygiene required left the girls little
time to play with the children. I asked to see the matron, and
discovered that she had been told nothing at all about Jody's
children's history. She did not know anything about their traumatic
experiences, or about the deaths they had witnessed. Various members
of our staff subsequently visited the children, until we got a
letter from the matron asking us not to come again, as we were
'disturbing' them. We weren't surprised by this - very few children's
homes like or encourage visitors. I did not argue, because I knew
that Jody would soon get the children out, and would still need
us. So I waited.

The next time she came she had them all with her. They were delighted
to be back. Tyrone went straight for Brian and tried to hustle
him for money. He got tenpence and a hug, which was what he was
really asking for. They had all grown taller, and the only one
I was worried about that time was Peter. He still had mood swings,
and could rapidly turn from a happy smiling child to a violent
and sullen thug.

I was able to spend some time with Tyrone and Peter, and at one
point I asked them to draw for me the story of Ralph in the bath.
This session took place about eighteen months after the event.
Peter, much as I expected, was still confused and angry about
the event. Jeff, who was with me at this session, felt as I did:
there was great danger for Peter because he could not make coherent
sense of his violent past.

Tyrone was quite different. He not only drew his version of what
had happened on that night, but he asked for a second piece of
paper and drew what happened at the dead woman's place. They had
been there and had seen it all; that

76

was the secret he was now willing to share with us. It must have
been an awful burden for a little three-year-old to carry. When
he had finished drawing the body, he carefully drew Ralph, his
mother Jody, Peter and himself. He said that Julia and Michael
were left at home. He then drew some bottles rolling on the floor.
'What did your mummy do when Ralph stabbed that lady?' I asked.
'She turned her head away and ran out of the room.' Tyrone had
all the events sorted out in his head. There was no confusion
and no fantasy. His emotions were appropriate to the event he
was remembering. I felt far more concern for Peter, who could
well grow up to reach for a knife reflexively in any state of
confused rage.

I begged endlessly for these children to receive child guidance.
But as it takes much arranging and trudging through red tape,
those children who most need child guidance are normally too peripatetic
to ever stay in one place long enough to start the process. After
this drawing session, Jody took the children home again. After
a while they were back in care. She visited me and we talked about
her feelings. The good sign was that she was on her own, with
no violent men in her life. The last time I saw her, things were
looking distinctly hopeful. She came back with another marvellous
woman who had been at the Refuge. They brought their children,
too, for Jody's kids were now out of care again, and they all
looked well. Jody told me that she had met a really nice kind
man who loved her and the children. He was a steady worker and
she did look relaxed and happy. So far so good. Fortunately I
am an optimist.

Drawing with children is an art form in itself. Talking to children
is also something that adults have to be re-trained to do. Usually
I take the time to get to know children before I ask them to trust
me with their secrets, but sometimes I do not have much time.

In Jenny's case, I knew the mother was not going to stay long,
so I had to work fast. Jenny was seven, and extremely articulate.
The conversation started with me asking her about her father's
violence. This is part of the transcript from my taped interview.

77

ERIN: I've been having a long natter with your Mum about life
at home with Dad, and the fact that Dad hits her, doesn't
be?'

JENNY: He's sitting down on the couch, and my Mum's sitting down,
and my Dad comes over and says 'Stand up', and my Mum gets up,
and then my Dad gets hold of her arm - and that's what starts
it. Because he's drunk.

ERIN: Yes. He's burnt her with a cigarette, hasn't he?

JENNY: Yes.

ERIN: Did you see that happen?

JENNY: I didn't see it happen.

ERIN: How did you know he'd done that? Is it on her hand where
you can see it?

JENNY: Yes. It's on my Mum's hand. My Daddy done it.

ERIN: Did you see him do it?

JENNY: Yes.

ERIN: Where were you?

JENNY: I was in Jean's room.

ERIN: Who's Jean?

JENNY: She lives down there (in another room in the house).

ERIN: Oh, wait a minute, yes. You share a room with your Mum and
Dad.

JENNY: Yes. And the other lady lives in another room.

ERIN: So you all sleep in the same room. When they start
fighting, and you're in bed, what do you do?

JENNY: I just go back to sleep, because I can't hear them

78

sometimes.

ERIN: You do hear them. You're pretending you don't, aren't
you?

JENNY: Only sometimes. Sometimes I'm fast asleep, but when he
starts shouting I wake up.

ERIN: What does he say when he shouts?

JENNY: He says 'Leave me alone'. My Mum, she knows that he'll
do it again (batter her).

ERIN: Are you glad she's left him? Yes? Are you nodding your head
or shaking it?

JENNY: Nodding it.

ERIN: You are glad. How do you feel about leaving him?

JENNY: It's all right.

ERIN: Really? Do you miss him at all? No? Because you know your
Mum's not been well recently. She's having another baby, isn't
she? And she's been in hospital. Now she's been talking to me
a lot about your Dad, and she wants to try and sort it out with
him - whether they can live together or not. What would you like
to happen?

JENNY: I'd like to stay here.

ERIN: And not go back to him? Does he hit you?

JENNY: Sometimes.

ERIN: Hard?

JENNY: Not very hard.

ERIN: What does he hit you for?

JENNY: Once when I was sitting in bed when 'Crossroads' was on,
Dad said 'Get into bed.' And I wasn't doing anything, because
I was only sitting on the bed with my Mum, and then I got in and
my Dad slapped me.

ERIN: On the other hand, he also gives you lots of toys and things,
doesn't he? And if your Mum tells you off, he lets you off.

JENNY: Yes. He bought me a monkey, and that went missing.

ERIN: A real monkey?

JENNY: A pretending one. When you squeeze him his arms move.

ERIN: What happened? Why did he go missing?

JENNY: Because we were in this other hostel, where my friend lives,
and we stayed there for a day, but then we had to

79

come back to my Dad.

ERIN: Why? Because he found you?

JENNY: No. He never found us. In case something happened to him.
And so we went back, and we left our clothes there (at the hostel),
but when we came back in the morning there was no monkey,
because this boy took it away from me.

ERIN: Do you think your Mum loves your Dad?

JENNY: I don't know.

ERIN: Honest? How many times have you left?

JENNY: Five.

ERIN: How old are you now?

JENNY: Seven. It was my birthday when we got over to Ireland,
and then my Dad had to come.

ERIN: So you went to Ireland when it was your birthday? Which
birthday was that?

JENNY: That was when we were over in Ireland. But my Mum had no
money, so I didn't have my birthday, and I had it in care, because
I didn't want to have my birthday, because my Mum didn't have
any money.

ERIN: How badly have you seen your Mum hit?

JENNY: Twelve times.

ERIN: What was the worst you've ever seen?

JENNY: When he was punching my Mum.

ERIN: Yes, but where?

JENNY: In the face.

ERIN: Was there blood?

JENNY: No blood.

ERIN: Where did he hit her, then?

JENNY: On the hair.

ERIN: What stopped him?

JENNY: When we was living in this other hostel, my a was fighting
my Mum and then I heard them shouting, and then I came up and
said 'Stop it, Daddy', and he stopped.

ERIN: Your Mum said she fights back, too.

JENNY: Yes, she does fight back, too.

ERIN: What does she do?

JENNY: She tries to calm him down, to stop doing it.

ERIN: She says she throws things.

80

ERIN: You sound like the grown-up. Do you think sometimes you
are more grown-up? I wonder sometimes. I know you're only seven,
but you know alot about it, don't you?

JENNY: Because I'm always awake. I never go to sleep at all.

ERIN: No? You lie there all night, just pretending, eh?

JENNY: I fall asleep sometimes after the film.

ERIN: What happens when they start fighting?

JENNY: I wake up and get out of bed.

ERIN: And what do you do?

JENNY: I say 'Stop it, Daddy', and my Dad stops. But sometimes
he doesn't stop and he says 'Get out of my way'.

ERIN: Then what do you do?

JENNY: I get out of his way, because he might stop if I get out
of his way.

ERIN: Do you ever get frightened he might kill her?

JENNY: Yes.

ERIN: Really? How long have you been frightened he might kiliher?

JENNY: Twelve days.

ERIN: Just recently then? It's got worse has it?

JENNY: It's worse.

ERIN: It's always been bad. So you've always been afraid your
Mum might die. What do you see happening to you?

JENNY: You mean in my own life?

ERIN: Yes.

JENNY: Nothing.

ERIN: What happens if she dies?

JENNY: My Dad will cry, maybe.

ERIN: What happens to you if she dies?

JENNY: I'll cry.

ERIN: Where will you go?

JENNY: The two men up in the office, I'll go and tell them.

ERIN: Yes.

JENNY: Then I'll phone the police.

ERIN: Yes.

81

ERIN: Yes.

JENNY: And then an ambulance will come, because I would have told
them that my Mum had died.

ERIN: Yes.

JENNY: And then they'll come up, won't they?

ERIN: What will they do?

JENNY: They'll get her in the ambulance because she

She had another little girl, you know, and she had to

give her away.

ERIN: Did she? How old were you when she gave her away?

JENNY: I don't know. She just told me. We have to call her my
cousin now because she gave her away. And she's a lot bigger.

After that interview, Jenny produced her drawing of family life.
As you can see, it shows two beds and a very wide-awake Jenny.
She knew her father had another girlfriend, so I asked a question
one does not normally ask a seven-year-old child.

ERIN: How do you feel when they are making love to each other?

JENNY: All right.

ERIN: Don't you feel embarrassed? You're used to it, I suppose.

JENNY: I'm used to it.

To Jenny that is what normal life is about. She has already worked
out a contingency plan for her mother's death, as the interview
shows. No doubt she will go on to become tomorrow's violence-prone
woman unless somewhere, somehow, someone gets her mother in a
position where she is able to confront the fact that not only
was she herself a battered child, but she was also raped by a
bunch of youths when she was fourteen. The baby that came from
that crisis in her life, whom Jenny describes as the little girl
given away, was passed over to another branch of the family. We
couldn't hold Jenny's mother, and she moved back to the husband.
However, I know that sometimes all it takes to rescue a child
is to give that child a glimpse of a possible alternative. That
is

83

why the Women's Aid playgroup staff put so much of themselves
into the loving of the children.

This next interview is with five-year-old Curt, talking td me
about his mother being beaten by a new boyfriend. We knew for
a fact that she encouraged the children to watch her making love.

ERIN: When he hit your mother, what do you do?

CURT: I don't know.

ERIN: Do you cry?

CURT: I was in the bedroom when he done it.

ERIN: How many times does he do it?

CURT: Twelve. (Children often use twelve as the biggest number
they can imagine.)

ERIN: What does your mum do? Does she scream?

CURT: No.

ERIN: What does she do?

CURT: She shouts.

ERIN: What does she shout? Go on, what does she shout, Curt?

CURT: What?

ERIN: What does she shout like? Show me.

CURT: A cissy.

ERIN: A cissy?

CURT: Yes.

ERIN: How does a cissy shout? Go on, tell me.

CURT: Like a girl.

ERIN: And what do girls shout?

CURT: Loud.

ERIN: Loud! What words do they say?

CURT: Languages.

ERIN: What languages?

CURT: Don't want to tell you.

ERIN: Oh yes, you do. I've heard your languages before. Go on.

CURT: No.

ERIN: Just once.

CURT: No.

ERIN: You've got your funny secret squirrel face on.

CURT: No, I haven't.

84

ERIN: Yes you have. I know why you're smiling, too. (meaning
his mother and her boyfriend.)

CURT: Why?

ERIN: Why your Daddy and Mummy used to smile at each other - same
reason.

CURT: No.

ERIN: Yes.

CURT: No.

ERIN: Do you watch now? (Watch his mother and her boyfriend
making love.)

CURT: No.

ERIN: You used to, didn't you?

CURT: No.

ERIN: Oh, oh, oh, that is a lie. Isn't it?

CURT: I do really.

ERIN: You do?

CURT: Yes.

ERIN: You still watch?

CURT: Yes.

ERIN: How do you watch now?

CURT: What?

ERIN: How do you watch now?

CURT: I don't know.

ERIN: Yes you do. Do you creep out of bed and listen? How can
you see?

CURT: Because the light's on.

ERIN: Oh, I see. Yes, that's how you see. Well you've worked very
hard for today

Curt and his mother were with us for quite a while until, again,
the borough saw her problem as a housing problem and gave her
a flat. We lost them in spite of endless arguing with the Social
Services over the fact that she was not ready to go. It is frightening
to see how Curt already reckons it's cissy to cry if you are being
battered. The 'secret squirrel' face refers to a certain look
on his face which shows a mixture of mirth and sexual perversity.
Seeing that expression was like looking at a deviant old man,
which is what Curt will probably become.

His four-year-old brother had this to say:

85

ERIN: Do you want to tell me your secret?

BOBBY: Yes.

ERIN: Why do you watch?

BOBBY: Just feel like it.

ERIN: You just feel like it. How do you feel when you're watching?

BOBBY: It makes me very happy.

Here are two small boys of four and five already taking an active
part in violence and sexual abuse. They were violent to each other
and to other children, and their perceptions of relationships
were totally distorted.

This is Eddie talking to me about his mother. He was wild, and
had an obsession with blood. The sight of it excited and stimulated
him.

ERIN: What does he hit her with? ('He' here is Eddie's father.)

EDDIE: Er.

ERIN: His fists?

EDDIE: No. Stick.

ERIN: Really?

EDDIE: Mmm.

ERIN: Does she have blood on her face sometimes?

EDDIE: No, she had blood running down her nose.

ERIN: Did she? What did you do?

EDDIE: Nothing.

ERIN: Did you cry?

EDDIE: Yes.

ERIN: How often does that happen?

EDDIE: Er. It kept coming down all the time.

ERIN: What, the blood?

EDDIE: Yes.

ERIN: Do you often see blood?

EDDIE: Yes.

ERIN: Do you like blood?

EDDIE: Yes.

ERIN: Why?

EDDIE: I don't.

ERIN: Eh?

86

ERIN: I can see you smiling and laughing. Yes?

EDDIE: No. I don't.

ERIN: When you go to playschool you can draw pictures of it.

Even when Eddie decides it is getting unsafe to go on talking
about it, he is wriggling on his chair, his face alive with glee.
One has to remember that he has just described his mother's face
after a beating.

This next little boy, specially asked to talk with me. When he
came in he got right down to business.

ERIN: Right. What is it you want to talk about? Why are you here?

FRANK: Because Dad fights.

ERIN: Yes. With who?

FRANK: Mum.

ERIN: Yes.

FRANK: And she bites things. And he won't stop. And Mum wants
him to go, and he won't go.

ERIN: Do you love him?

FRANK: Yes.

ERIN: Really?

FRANK: Yes.

ERIN: What's nice about him?

FRANK: Good.

ERIN: He's good to you, is he?

FRANK: Yes.

ERI N: What happened to you? What happened to your eye?

FRANK: Blind.

ERIN: Why?

FRANK: Because Dad picked me up and shook me, and this eye went
blind.

ERIN: How do you know that?

FRANK: I'm right.

ERIN: How do you know?

FRANK: Because Dad done it, really.

ERIN: How do you know?

87

FRANK: I know when

ERIN: Who told you?

FRANK: Dad.

ERIN: Did he?

FRANK: Yes.

ERIN: Why did he tell you?

FRANK: Because I wanted him to.

ERIN: Are you upset?

FRANK: No.

ERIN: Why?

FRANK: Because I'm all right.

ERIN: But don't you mind that he made you blind?

FRANK: Mmm.

ERIN: He didn't mean to do it, did he?

FRANK: No.1 only wanted to be blind.

ERIN: Did you?

FRANK: Yes.

ERIN: Why?

FRANK: Because I like it.

ERIN: What does it feel like?

FRANK: Good. It's lovely.

ERIN: Explain it to me. I'm not blind, so I don't know what it
feels like. What does it feel like?

FRANK: It feels like it's nice.

ERIN: What's better about being blind than being not blind?

FRANK: Then you can cry over everything then - when I'm not blind.

ERIN: But you can't when your blind, though. Isn't that true?

FRANK: Mmm.

ERIN: So what's good about being blind?

FRANK: About being blind is that when you can't see - and I can
see a little bit.

ERIN: How much can you see? For instance can you see the tape-recorder?

FRANK: Yes. This eye. (Frank had totally lost sight in one
eve, and only partial sight remains in the other.)

Later on, when the tape-recorder ran out, he suddenly let go of
a secret grief. 'I won't be able to drive cars,' he said. He felt
so much love for his father, who really did love his son. The
blinding was an act the father would regret all his life, so the
little boy took it upon himself to remove as much guilt from his
father as he could. 'I like it, really.' In the quiet of the office
he did not have to pretend. He could allow himself to be a hurt,
bewildered, blind child. Fortunately for this boy, he is at a
very good special school where people truly care for him. Also,
both parents, although they have a destructive addictive need
for each other, separately are intelligent, and genuinely do love
him. With some pluses in his life, he may just transcend their
violence. I hope so.

On the 13 November 1980, I wrote an article for New Society,
with Michael Dunne from the Refuge, on the subject of incest.
I was amazed by the total silence that greeted it. I have listened
over ten years to families in the Refuge pouring out their stories.
I have seen the damage done to the children exposed to their parents
sexual demands. I have watched adults kissing and caressing their
children in a totally sexual manner, and have then realised yet
again that the parents' reality shapes the reality of their children.
If your father used to kiss you lasciviously on the mouth, then,
unless some-where along the line someone points out the inappropriateness
of this to you, you will probably do the same to your children.
I remember my first moment of shock when I saw one of our mothers
lean over her nine-year-old son, who was sprawling on a sofa,
and kiss him passionately on his mouth. 'Belinda', I said 'that's
your son, not your lover.' She looked at me m surprise and left
the room.

Father/daughter incest is a social problem that is now recognised,
if not understood. Mother/son incest is still a strictly taboo
subject. In fact I continually read books that state quite categorically
that mother/son incest is so rare that

89

it is virtually nonexistent. Those of us who see mother-damaged
men all round us, and have suffered at their hands, would do well
to raise our voices and object. Certainly it is rare for a woman
to actually have sexual intercourse with her son. This, I believe,
is because women do not want to risk the social stigma of getting
caught in what is still a totally unacceptable act. Men seem to
have an urgent sexual need to penetrate in order to achieve maximum
sexual pleasure. At some point they lose control, and then they
may be caught, and the matter is made public. Women get a more
diffuse sexual pleasure from just touching and stroking. So many
of their incestuous acts with their sons are usually very subtle
and very difficult for the son to deal with or describe. A girl
can say, 'This is what my father did to me,' and feel outraged
at the event. A boy, however) has to say to me, 'This is what
I think my mother did to me.'

Furthermore, mothers tend to disguise sexual acts, if they do
want to penetrate their children through their role as loving
nurses, giving rectal suppositories, rectal thermometers, and
enemas.

Naturally, in a healthy family, the parents will kiss, cuddle,
touch, and, when necessary, nurse their children. The difference,
however, between the normal affection of a healthy family and
the unsaid sexual acts of incestuous family is not the outward
act itself but the charge behind the act which the parent feels.
A kiss may be fine in one family, but in another family, when
the parents act with a heavy sexual charge, and the child instinctively
picks up on that charge, then the same kiss becomes an incestuous
assault. One boy described how his mother had his brothers hold
him down when he was as old as twelve, to push an enema tube into
his rectum. He was constantly in hospital for constipation. The
hospital quite unwittingly encouraged the mother to commit this
gross act of indecency upon her child.

The whole subject of incest is so huge that it will be the subject
of our next book, but suffice it to say that incest is endemic
in our Western society. It has always been said that incest is
the last taboo which, once removed, heralds the destruction of
a civilisation. The Criminal Law Revision Committee suggested
in its October of 1980 Working Paper

90

on Sexual Offences that a father should no longer be prosecuted
if he has sexual intercourse with his daughter, provided she is
over twenty-one. If society follows this pattern of moral decline,
the future for children in this country looks even bleaker than
the present.

The major problem is that many of the people who organise this
country and make all the major decisions, both morally and financially,
do so not out of an altruistic love of mankind, but out of a deep
greedy need of self-service. They got where they are by a ruthless
driving ambition which is the by-product of a violent personality.
Happy, contented human beings seldom seek high office. They prefer
the warmth and love of good relationships to long hours spent
in meetings or in offices. The people who run our society are
the last people to listen to any attempts to organise changes,
to improve and to protect the lives of children. Such prospects
threaten their lives, their personal power over their own families,
and above all, their control over the defenceless and frightened
children.